


tango till they're sore

by sciencemyfiction



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Fellatio, M/M, Masturbation, bittersweet consensual and happy sex, handjobs, soldier kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-26
Updated: 2014-04-26
Packaged: 2018-01-20 20:23:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1524338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four shorts about Steve and Bucky, and romance, and sex, and dominance, and grief, and forgiveness.</p><p>Written in part because of a request by <a href="http://marchingjaybird.tumblr.com">marchingjaybird</a> made on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This is how it was:

Steve underaged, refusing to drink, while Bucky couldn't get up the nerve to do it without a few beers and didn't give a damn how illegal it might be to get trashed, completely fucking wasted, underage or over.

Bucky's hands were so gentle, cradling Steve to his chest while they shared the tiny cot in Bucky's room, as silent as they could be, as loud as they dared, just kissing, freezing whenever they heard the creak of floorboards in the house.

James Barnes Sr would never have stood for it, would have beat his son until he was senseless, would have disowned him.

Sometimes Steve would get gutsy, get handsy, slip his callused palms under the waistband of Bucky's pants, cup him, squeeze until Bucky hummed and put his lips to Steve's ear, hissing "Fuck! Fuck fuck, fuck," as softly as he dared and shaking with the want, holding back so they wouldn't be caught.

They never got much further than kissing; they didn't get a chance, not with Bucky getting drafted and disappearing.

This is how it is now:

Steve, alone in the bed, wakes up to the feeling of it dipping, a heavy body curling up behind him, shaking.

He turns over, he runs his hands through Bucky's hair.

"Please," Bucky says, low and tired and sad. "Please, please."

Steve slips his hands down Bucky's naked, scarred skin. He whispers into Bucky's ear, "I'm with you," touching bullet scars, surgical scars, tracing the limp line of Bucky's dick. "It's okay."

Bucky kisses up at Steve, kisses his throat and his cheek and then shoves a tongue into his mouth, desperate and hungry, and Steve keeps touching until it's not limp anymore.

Steve says again, as Bucky goes stiff and still in his arms, their mouths coming apart, Bucky coming apart and sobbing _Steve_!, "I'm here."


	2. Chapter 2

When he wakes up to the cold of being alone in the bed, Steve has learned to stop being surprised. The future is a bleak and heartless place, and he can't get drunk so he doesn't drink, though he finds himself envious of the young and wild people of the modern world, who drug themselves and dance and relentlessly scream to the heavens that they are alive in as many ways as they can. He knows that they are as hopeless in their own way as he is.

Denied drink, denied company, Steve goes to the gym, works himself to the bone, till he's so tired he's shaking, till he's so shaken he's ready to drop. He stumbles to the showers, stands beneath the water, leaves it room temperature, a little cold but not too much.

He remembers what it's like to feel small and cramped on a narrow bed, pressed up with his cheek on someone else's chest. Remembers touching, but never being touched, remembers the electric feeling of kissing.

Steve never did much; not with Bucky, wasn't safe, not with Peggy, wasn't time. It doesn't change the way he wanted them, wanted to be the one who could be there to back Bucky up, wanted to be the one who Peggy taught to dance.

He stands in the spray, smooths his hands down his belly, touches himself, once, lightly. Up, and thumbs his nipples, rubs at his neck.

He covers his mouth, he fists his cock, he jerks off to Bucky's mouth on his so many, many years ago, mouthing _quiet_ and _don't_ and _yeah like that, fuck_.

What would it have been like, after the serum?

He bites the meat of his hand, clenching his fist a little tighter. He thinks of wrapping Bucky in his arms, telling him, _Slide your hand on it, soldier_.

Bucky would have hated him for it, loved him for it, gone red, told him _fuck you_ and pushed back, and Steve would pull him close, lips on his neck just so while Bucky choked out that high-pitched whining sound he'd made just once, just once, the last time before he'd been drafted. That sound is the stuff of Steve's every guilty fantasy. That sound will never come again. Steve has crystallized it in his mind.

He steadies himself, tries to keep from going too fast, wants to draw this out, wants to remember while he adds in a happy ending for himself, a little bit of happiness snatched up when they were on the front line and Steve hadn't realized that they didn't have all the time in the world after all.

So Bucky would say _fuck you_ and Steve would shut him up by sucking at his throat, there, and tell him

"That's an order," Steve hisses under his breath, coming before he can go further.

He stays in the shower until his eyes are dry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Actually, [despite the title, Lucinda](http://youtu.be/sPJl9LfrVNY). Yes.


	3. Chapter 3

Two months after Steve has found him, he still can barely stand having someone else in the bed, let alone letting Steve hold him. (Too warm. But alone, too cold. Then there's ice and that instant of knowing he might never wake up and swallowed screams and the penetrating cold as he drops out onto the floor, mind empty and heart stuttering against the chill.)

But he wants it.

He's seen Steve in the shower, when maybe he thinks no one can see.

He's remembered things, flashes.

He wants it.

He wants to feel small and loved and safe.

He wants to feel protected.

He wants to give everything up while he's held by gossamer and steel. He wants. He wants.

They are still as stiff as rusted hinges on doors around each other, screeching and protesting whenever they try to figure out how to fit together.

He's sure that Steve wants, too, but also that Steve was expecting someone else, someone who doesn't remember Dr. Zola's face and scalpel, someone who isn't plagued by night terrors and dangerous to be around when sleeping.

He wears the face of the person Steve wants, and he wishes he was that person, but they both know that's not him. He can put on the name, he can try to remember, but that's not him.

The weather outside is starting to cool off, still thick and humid, and sweat is standing out on his skin when he gets back from running. He doesn't know how long he ran, or how far. It was noon when he left. It's sunset now. He's breathless and aching and thirsty.

Steve is waiting, scowling, arms akimbo, like a concerned parent.

"Where were you?"

Bucky doesn't say; he's out of breath, anyway, but he stops when Steve doesn't budge out of the door.

"I asked you a question, Bucky, where the hell were you?"

He doesn't know where that steel came from, but he responds to it, whether he meant to or not. "Running," his voice sounds hoarse and unsure to his own ears. Is it even audible to Steve's? "Just around, I was running." He almost slips and says, _sir_ , but not quite.

Bucky swallows, throat still dry as a bone, lips parched and cracking, and looks at Steve anxiously, waits. When Steve steps aside, he says, "Get some water, then."

"Yeah." He slips inside, pulls a glass of tap water-- Steve always makes a face when he does that but Bucky can't taste anything wrong with it-- and drains it in seconds. He pulls a second glass, drains that one too, and then Steve's voice stops him as he's pulling a third.

"That's enough."

Bucky freezes, one hand on the glass, trembling a little, the other on the faucet. They stare each other down, and Bucky wants to be the man Steve sees but he's not. He sets down the glass.

Clearing his throat, Steve nods, looks away. "I was worried, you know? You didn't say anything."

"Sorry," Bucky says, before he really can think it through. He adds, contritely, "I just needed to be outside. I-- Sorry."

That's all; Steve nods again, and goes deeper into the tower where they're staying. Bucky goes to the showers, cleans up, and goes immediately to the bedroom they gave him and Steve to share.

It's not unusual; everybody in the building shares a room with somebody. It's efficient. The man in charge, Tony Stark, says it's just temporary, until they finish furnishing the other rooms on this floor for proper living arrangements.

But then, Bucky thinks that most of the people living here are soldiers, and they're used to sharing a room, maybe even a bed. All the rooms have only the one, but it's big enough that two people can sleep without touching. And it's so soft, and it's so-- he's not even sure he can compare, he doesn't remember ever sleeping in any other beds, but--

It's hard to explain. He loves the bed. He's alienated by the bed. He wants something this soft, but something firm, too, something stable. A good frame under the bed ensures he gets that, so overall, Bucky is satisfied.

Except the lingering questions he has. Why Steve and not someone else? Is it part of a test? Are they trying to get him to remember?

God, he wants to remember so badly.

He works himself up too much thinking about it to sleep, even though he's run himself to exhaustion and his body is aching and ready to give up for the night. He hasn't eaten; his stomach is growling. He knows he could get back up, put on a shirt, go to the kitchen, make something to eat.

Instead he lies in the bed, anxious, curled up, aching, hungry. He's not who Steve wants to come home to.

He hates it.

When the door opens, when Steve steps in, Bucky has drifted into a kind of meditative middle ground. The hunger is pushing him close to what it was like when he was the Winter Soldier, makes it harder to think except that he would do anything, anything at all, if someone just told him what to do.

"Bucky?" Steve asks. "Are you asleep?"

"No."

Steve is a perfect silhouette in the doorway. Bucky stares at the shadowed glory of him until his eyes water, and Steve doesn't move, evidently unsure about whether he should be this near to Bucky right now.

With a sigh, Steve apparently comes to a decision and steps inside, closes the door. He leaves off the lights, but there's a little bit of dim glow from the city outside the room's one window. 

"I'm coming to bed, okay?"

"Yeah," Bucky mumbles, blinking slowly as Steve approaches, turning onto his back when Steve stops on Bucky's side of the bed, staring down at him. He feels totally naked even though he's got pants on just in case they get a call; he stares up, and wishes Steve would tell him what to do so he could be Bucky, really be Bucky, like they both want him to be.

"Can I hold you, Buck?"

This delicate question is so much more raw than anything else Steve has said to him since finding him again that Bucky is taken aback. He sits up, tries to get a better look at Steve in this shadowed half-light, reaches up and when Steve catches his metal wrist and pushes it back, Bucky lets him, goes along with the motion easily.

He says, "Yes, sir," and feels a wave of conflicting emotion; embarrassed anger that he just played into the same role he's been fighting so hard to get out of, and a deeply erotic pleasure to find himself under Steve's power.

Steve climbs over him, spoons him, pulls him back into Steve's big chest, and kisses him, just so, on the throat.

It feels like silk, Steve's lips. His arms are a sturdy cage, locked around Bucky's waist and shoulders.

"Bucky," Steve whispers, so gently into his ear that it sends a tingling through Bucky's face. He shudders. "Let me take care of you."

"Is that an order?" Bucky asks, but he doesn't feel defiant, doesn't feel cocky saying it. He feels vulnerable and scared, like he needs Steve to say yes more than he's ever needed anything in his life.

He can feel the tension and excitement building in Steve's breath on his throat, in the slightly increased pressure of Steve's arms holding him in place.

When the answer comes, it's in a growl that shoots straight down Bucky's spine, that makes him melt into Steve's control like he was born to it:

"Do it, lieutenant. Do it for me."

Steve's hands are strong and callused as they slip under Bucky's waistband, they know how to hold him, they know how to thumb the glans and twist just so on the upstroke and Bucky doesn't remember that he's supposed to be quiet so he sobs and moans, again and again, "Yes, sir-- yes, sir-- _yes sir_!" until he's completely overwhelmed.

It feels so good he's crying; he yelps, "Sir--" and whines, "Steve, _Steve_ ," and when Steve's hands move up to his chest Bucky sighs in relief, lays his own hands on top of them.

Steve stays tense beside him, anxious, and kisses his shoulder blades. What a thing to kiss; Bucky had never thought of that. It tickles and feels so good that he starts to relax in spite of himself, sighing.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," Bucky gulps, turning his head back. Steve twists around to meet him, steals a quick, lips on lips kiss. It makes Bucky laugh, even though his eyes are wet. "Too much," he promises, wistfully, gratefully. "It just felt too good."

Steve puts his lips to Bucky's ear again, and says, "Okay."


	4. Chapter 4

By winter they've developed coping mechanisms, they've developed a routine, they've talked, Bucky's remembered some things but seems unable to find access to others. Early on, Steve promised never to tell Bucky anything he should know if he remembered, worried that Bucky would just latch on to what Steve had said and never really find the pieces again. It's a good arrangement; they've even moved from sleeping with Steve curled protectively against Bucky's back to being able to masturbate each other without either one of them having to call a halt to it in the middle.

Bucky isn't sure if he has the right to say he's happy, but he is, and that brings with it a feeling of lingering dread that gets worse and worse the longer that nothing goes wrong.

Nothing works; Steve tries reassuring him by pointing out that they are living in the safest place they can, working with some of the world's most dangerous people as their allies. They _are_ some of the world's most dangerous people.

Through it all, Bucky can't help but worry. It's a panicky sort of worry, like something big is going to happen, something bad. It's almost a relief when, on the day that the first snow falls, it finally does.

They're out that day, they're out getting groceries. It's such a stupid thing. They're riding the train, and as they go over the bridge Steve points out the window, says, "Guess it finally decided to snow after all, huh?"

And for the first time, Bucky remembers something about being _Bucky Barnes_ , not the Winter Soldier.

He loses time, though apparently he didn't do much-- Steve is anxiously leading him off the train at their stop when he comes out of it, shaking so bad he can't carry the bags he'd been holding before, with boxes of dried noodles and cans of soup for the communal kitchen. Steve appears to be carrying them now, and he's half carrying Bucky, who is clinging to Steve like he'll fly off and hit the ground otherwise.

Somehow, they make it home; Bucky doesn't know when the Avengers' tower started to count as home in his mind, but it doesn't seem pertinent right now. He wants to stop, he knows he needs to stop, needs to just breathe, but he can't even look Steve in the eye, he feels sick and confused and horrified.

Steve drops the groceries just inside the door, and then Bucky is being wrapped in warm arms, the smell of Steve, the fainter smell of the laundry detergent they use here in the tower. They stand like that, just inside the door, until Bucky can finally make himself talk. Steve is whispering something in his ear but it's only at the end of nearly an hour that Bucky realizes that.

He says, finally, haunted, "I fell."

Steve's arms tighten, and Bucky _knows_ , even though he didn't remember that part he _knows_ that Steve saw it happen, that Steve was there.

Bucky pushes his face into Steve's shoulder, laughs weakly. "But I remembered."

That's something Steve's taught him to do, in the past few months, while they've rediscovered each other, while they've learned each other. Look on the positive side, try to bring out the good even in the bad situations. It's how Steve has talked Bucky out of panic attacks before.

Now Bucky's finally relaxing, able to seize onto the gladness of being able to remember (and maybe, even better, someday remember more) and cast aside the panic of the fall. He becomes aware that he's not the only one panicking. Steve's face is buried in Bucky's shoulder too, and the fabric is wet there.

"Steve," Bucky murmurs, apologetic. "Steve, it's okay."

The broken sound Steve makes is awful. Bucky pushes against him, but he can't budge Steve without some compliance on Steve's part. He shifts his grip, hooking his hands around Steve's waist and his chin on that shoulder he'd been hiding in before, and sighs.

"I'm okay," Bucky says, because it's the only thing he can think of to say that might help reassure Steve, here and now. He knows; maybe not everything, but enough to know he would grieve if it was reversed, if Bucky was the one who hadn't fallen. "I'm okay. It's okay."

Steve shudders, just once, and nods, slowly pulling back, getting another look at Bucky, as if making sure he's still there.

The groceries are still sitting there, but it seems to Bucky that Steve's forgotten them, because his focus is here, right here, burning sharp into Bucky's eyes with the need to prove how real this moment is, right here and now.

"Bedroom," Steve whispers, urgently, hungrily. "Now."

There's that lingering urge to argue, that little part of him that doesn't like it when Steve pulls rank, maybe, but at the same time is severely turned on when Steve gives him commands.

He thinks about it, then nods, daring to slip his hands up to Steve's face, cupping it gently, careful of the metal fingers. Bucky steals a kiss, short and messy and just as much an affirmation that he is okay as the words were, a moment ago. He licks Steve's lips as they're pulling apart, and he goes to the bedroom.

Shortly after-- because Bucky knows Steve took the time to collect himself and put away the groceries before following-- Steve enters the bedroom.

Bucky is waiting for him, sitting on the floor beside the uncomfortable wooden chair Steve likes to sit in when he's reading. They haven't done anything with the chair, haven't coded it for sex, but Bucky knows what he wants to do, he's thought about it often enough, and he's of the mind that Steve catches on quick enough that he will be pleased by Bucky's initiative.

Though he makes an imposing silhouette, it's always Steve's voice that puts Bucky in the mood to take orders from him. "Get undressed," Steve commands, and Bucky does, while Steve comes in, closes the door, takes a seat in the chair and unbuttons the fly of his pants.

There's a moment, as Bucky's slipping out of his own pants entirely, that Steve falters, says gently, "Are you sure you want to do this, Bucky?"

Bucky doesn't brush it off; has learned that when Steve asks, it's as much because he needs the truth as when Bucky needs orders.

He thinks about it; about that rush of terror on the train, and about the sympathy he feels now; about Steve, on the bridge of a crashing ship, refusing to fight because to him, Bucky was worth keeping alive.

He says, "I'm sure," and Steve's shoulders ease, his smile turning warm instead of nervous, his eyes gleaming with intent.

"Then come here," Steve orders, softly, his voice like distant thunder. Bucky does, kneeling at Steve's feet and waiting for the rest of it. "I want you to use your mouth, this time."

He knows his heartbeat picks up, he knows he's breathing a little shakier in his excitement, but Bucky can't help it. Steve makes him feel needed. He wants that.

So he says,

"Yes, sir."

Bucky kneels in front of Steve, lays his hands on Steve's hips to hold himself steady, and he leans in, kissing the head of Steve's cock where it stands, half-hard. He drinks in the little, tiny, quiet sounds that Steve makes as he explores: a gasp when Bucky stripes his tongue up the underside, repeating the motion a few times before he tries sucking the glans into his lips.

It doesn't really have a taste, anymore than water does; but it feels surprisingly comfortable, and he suckles it deeper, deeper-- swallows around it, and coughs, pulling back in surprise.

"Ah--!" Steve has his hands fisted in his own hair, looks devastated, looks like he wants to touch Bucky but is too afraid. "Y-you okay?"

Once he's coughed a bit, his throat feels normal again, if a little bruised. Bucky slides his hands up Steve's sides, reaches up to catch Steve's wrists, transferring his hands to Bucky's still-long hair. He smiles, very slightly, a little lopsided. "I'm okay. I'm gonna keep going."

Steve looks stricken, but after a moment to recover he nods, face going red, and he helps push Bucky back down on his cock, fingers curling in until he's pulling roughly on Bucky's scalp.

There's something perfect about this position, Bucky thinks, bent over Steve, pinned by Steve's hands in his hair, pinning Steve to the chair with hands on his hips, with his tongue playing around the shaft of Steve's cock, teasing, not quite sucking it back in.

Steve croons weakly when Bucky purses his lips and blows over the head, he shouts, "Fucking-- do it!" when Bucky kisses the glans again, rubs his tongue over it in quick little flicks for a while before Steve's hands push him down and he hazily, but gladly, complies.

It seems like the deeper they go, the more Steve remembers that he's the one in command, which lets Bucky figure out how to keep his throat open enough not to choke while Steve pushes him down for a few seconds, then lets him up to breathe.

Bucky's knees are good and numb by the time Steve suddenly changes direction, pulling up, trying to get Bucky off, shouting, "Wait--!"

It's too late; Bucky squeezes Steve's hips to make him give it up, and sucks hard, keeps the glans in his mouth and catches most of what Steve has to give on his tongue.

He doesn't like the taste, but he doesn't hate it, either. It's not the point; what matters is Steve's flushed and sheepish face above him, Steve's hand stroking through his hair apologetically, and the way Steve mewls weakly, looking away like it'll kill him to see more when Bucky opens his mouth to show off what he just did.

While Steve is recovering, Bucky decides to swallow it down, since he doesn't really want to spit it on the floor. It goes down easy; he rests his face against the inside of Steve's thigh, drifting for a while as Steve rests his hand in Bucky's hair, not quite letting go.

He doesn't even realize he's not hard anymore until Steve croaks, "What about you?"

Bucky shakes his head slightly, pressing a kiss to that clothed inner thigh before he pulls back to look Steve in the eye. "I don't need it right now." It's the truth; he waits until Steve seems to understand that, and closes his eyes in gratitude when Steve strokes Bucky's cheek, cupping it in his palm.

"You did good, lieutenant," Steve says, raggedly, and Bucky smiles into the kiss that follows.


End file.
